Mark Webber is relishing his starting position for Sunday's Monaco GP having been elevated to pole position by Michael Schumacher's penalty.
The Mercedes driver claimed the coveted grid slot with a 1:14.301 around the streets of Monte Carlo with Webber 0.080s back.
However, Schumacher arrived in Monaco with a grid penalty for his Spanish GP crash with Bruno Senna, which means he drops to sixth and Webber is up to first.
And the Red Bull driver believes that starting at the front will stand him in good stead as he bids for his first victory of the season.
"It was an amazing session wasn't it? It was very, very close," Webber said.
"Q3 was tight between the first few rows obviously there were some different tyre strategies with different people getting to the difficult part of qualifying with different sets of tyres and in the end it was a good little battle.
"Michael did a good lap - fair play to him - but it's nice to move up a position, of all places it's good starting towards the front here and I'm really looking forward to the race tomorrow."
Looking ahead to Sunday's grand prix, the Aussie believes it will be a "chess match" as track position and strategy are vital on a circuit where overtaking is extremely difficult.
"We know track position round here is important so you need to keep that as much as you can and you also have the chess match.
"Off the front here is a little bit easier for the guys in terms of strategy for them to look for a place for you to drop in to in terms of stops. We know overtaking here is notorious. Then there's obviously a long grand prix.
"Concentration for the drivers; we're going to have phases of the grand prix where the tyres will be fresh, the tyres will be very tired, so you have to be ready for that."
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